2 neophyte lawmakers’ proposals on how to ‘clean’ pork

Camarines Sur Rep. Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo and Sen. Benigno Aquino IV. FILE PHOTOS

MANILA, Philippines—Two neophyte lawmakers have proposed mechanisms aimed at cleaning up the mess created by the misuse of the pork barrel, giving taxpayers the authority to identify a group or project to be funded by 5 percent of their income tax.

Camarines Sur Rep. Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo, widow of the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, has devised her own mechanism seeking to eliminate congressional discretion in the disbursement of the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

The Robredo model seeks to convert part of the congressional allocation into a “District Performance Incentive Fund.” This means a “performing” barangay, town or city would have “greater access to funds.”

Development council

The new structure would also task the proposed “District Development Council” (DDC)—patterned after the People’s Council in Naga City—with identifying projects where the PDAF allocation would be spent.

“I don’t want to rely mainly on my discretion because if I let that happen, I might fall into the same trap as my predecessor and I don’t want that,” she told reporters.

“I never held any public office before. My only model really is my husband. So whatever I learned from him, I’m trying to apply here (in Congress).”

In the upper chamber, Sen. Benigno Aquino IV has filed a bill for the creation of a procedure allowing a taxpayer to identify a charity group, government project or political party to be funded by five percent of his or her income tax.

Senate Bill No. 1356, or Aquino’s proposed People’s Fund Act, seeks to enable an individual taxpayer to allocate 5 percent of his or her income tax for any of the following: an accredited charity or civil society organization; a priority national or local government project; or a legitimate political party.

People’s Fund

The People’s Fund is Aquino’s alternative to the P25-billion PDAF in which members of Congress can identify projects worth P200 million per senator or P70 million per House member.

Under Aquino’s proposal, the Bureau of Internal Revenue shall establish the mechanism that would enable individual taxpayers to select beneficiaries upon filing of their annual income tax returns.

An interagency committee led by the Department of Budget and Management is proposed to be given the task of determining the eligibility of organizations, and setting the conditions, guidelines, and reporting requirements for the receipt and use of the funds by the beneficiary organizations.

“The people’s clamor for transparency, accountability and good governance is growing louder and stronger. Government must heed the call of the people and institutionalize mechanisms that will ensure greater citizen involvement on how public funds are being spent,” Aquino said in a statement.

“To be clear, this is not a new tax that will burden the people. The People’s Fund will come from the taxes the people pay every year.

The only difference is the power given to the taxpayer to identify where a percentage of this tax will go,” Aquino added.

Other countries

Aquino said this has already been done in other countries. He said it was about time the Philippines adopted the system.

“After all, our estimate of the People’s Fund is around P10  billion. It’s still smaller than the PDAF that it seeks to replace, which is worth P25 billion (under the 2014 national budget of P2.26 trillion),” he said.

“In the end, the government will still be able to save a huge amount usually allocated to the pork barrel,” he added.

House resolution

Robredo is set to file on Wednesday a resolution suggesting the new PDAF model to her colleagues. She said she had been preparing the mechanism for her district even before the pork barrel scandal erupted.

“When all this happened, I thought of suggesting (the model) as a solution, not only for my district, but for everyone because we really have a problem when it comes to the confidence of our people in us,” she said.

Bottom-up budgeting

Robredo sat down with a number of House members during the weekend to tackle her proposal. The consensus was to put the Naga model in a resolution, which might still include additional features.

Under Robredo’s proposal, a member of the House would choose only from a list of “proposed programs and projects submitted by the local government unit through bottom-up budgeting and endorsed by the DDC.”

Half of the council would be composed of representatives of people’s organizations and accredited nongovernment organizations.

“As much as possible, I don’t want to enjoy as wide a discretion as I am allowed under the present structure. That’s why I want to distance myself and ask help from a council,” she said.

Robredo said the Naga model was “not in conflict” with the “new mechanism” presented by Malacañang in light of the public outrage over the pork barrel.

“If PDAF will continuously be used as a tool for patronage politics, it would really be better to already abolish it,” she said. “But if it can be converted into a tool for development, ensure inclusive growth, it would be good.”

Under her proposal, a barangay (village), town or city will get access to PDAF depending on its performance on “education, health, livelihood and local governance.”

But “nonperforming” areas would not be left empty-handed, she said.

“(They) would still get allocation but will not be prioritized,” she said, arguing that “the people, after all, should not suffer from the inefficiency of their local government.”